A blog about technology and politics

Laptop Diaries VII

Back to Linux. I’ve decided (a long time ago) I want a Red Hat version; the C400 is a works tool and I work in Sun’s Data Centre Practice. If I want Sun’s Java Desktop system, I can either use the corporate network or my Solaris partition. The reason I want a Linux partition is to familiarise myself with the platform of choice for many web hosting providers and many developers. Here’s my notes on what, how and why.

As discussed in Laptop Diaries II, my previous Linux installations had been RH 7.2 & RH 9.0. My 7.2 build had used Ximian’s Red Carpet as my software update mechanism, but I’d stopped using it as they began to push to Ximian 2 and taking any X-Windows update became dangerous; the Dell’s video card implementation and the workaround. At the time of writing Laptop Diaries II, I used some disks cut by an ex-colleague, Richard Miles with Red Hat 9.0, but staying with the mantra of “new & free”, Mike cut an ISO set for Fedora.

We used the default boot setting, boot graphic. It looks pretty bad until anaconda discovers the i830 chip set and then behaves itself.

If you’ve not been following the previous Laptop Diaries articles this month, I currently have three disk partitions, hosting windows, solaris and empty, with the solaris boot manager in the mbr. During the Linux installation we used disk druid to delete the outstanding {i.e. the empty & final} partition at the end of the disk and the install went perfectly after that, using the automatic partitioning feature of the installation program. I haven’t yet had a chance to check the update program or begin to customise the build but it looks like we’re there. Obviously the Linux install also wrote grub to the master boot record so I have the prettiest, most configurable boot manager on the system.

Maybe Legal

All wrongs righted;linking is not approval; opinion is my own, not my employers, nor organisations that I belong to or support.

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